The asteroid formerly known as "274301" shall henceforth be known as "Wikipedia."

The name change was reportedly pitched by a board member of Wikimedia Ukraine and submitted to the Committee for Small Body Nomenclature by Yuri Ivashchenko, the head of the Ukrainian observatory where the asteroid was first observed. The asteroid's new official designation was announced last week on page 82,403 of the International Astronomical Union's latest Minor Planet Circular:

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According to SPACE.com, the object was discovered in 2008, is about a mile wide, and orbits the Sun once every 3.68 Earth years at a distance 2.4 times that separating Earth from the Sun. No word yet on whether the Wikimedia Foundation intends to emblazon Jimmy Wales' face on the object and hound stargazers for donations, but we'd count it as a distinct possibility.